Collection

Marek Kijewski and Małgorzata Malinowska formed an artistic duo Kijewski / Kocur from 1996 until Marek Kijewski’s death in 2007. Today, their work should be regarded as iconic, defining reflection on the early capitalism in Poland’s visual culture. In their work from the 1990s, they were the first to refer to the new visual consumer culture that emerged in Poland as a result of the political transformation. They postulated a radical aesthetic break with what had previously dominated Polish art (according to Kijewski this was the so-called “aesthetics of unwrot timber”) and opening up to the specific mysticism of their contemporary reality of the perod of transformation. To a larger extent than the tradition of avant-garde, they referred to the tradition of pop-art, which in their opinion was better suited to the artistic description and analysis of young Polish capitalist society. Unlike the artists of the so-called critical art, they chose a more communitarian and comprehensible language of art, referring to popular tastes, consciously flirting with kitsch. The “Golden Arrow”, referring to the new “ecstatic” reality of the young capitalist country, made of makeshift materials typically used by the duo taken from the consumer reality (Lego blocks, a drainpipe etc.), juxtaposed with noble flake gold associated with sacred art.